Clock-Speed of AMD Opteron "Bulldozer" Microprocessor Revealed

An unknown server end-user or hardware vendor has apparently attempted to test an engineering sample of sixteen-core AMD Opteron "Interlagos" microprocessors powered by Bulldozer micro-architecture. While the benchmark numbers are unavailable, previously unknown clock-speeds of the novelty transpired.

The unidentified recipient of alleged sixteen-core AMD Opteron "Interlagos" utilized processor marked as AMD Eng[ineering] Sample ZS182045TGG43_28 clocked at 1.80GHz as well as Supermicro H8DGU mainboard, according to a listing at OpenBenchmarking.org web-site. While the benchmark results of the dual-socket 32-core server are unavailable, the list of programs that were run via the Phoronix Test Suite includes a long list of applications and conditions.

It is interesting to note that the unknown hardware vendor or end-user compared to dual-socket 32-core machine against four-socket 48-core AMD Opteron 6168 (12-core, 1900MHz, 6MB L2, 12MB L3, 80W ACP, 115W TDP) server. Potentially, this may indicate efficiency of AMD Bulldozer micro-architecture versus previous-generation microprocessors, but this is not an evidence, though.

While 1.80GHz is hardly a high clock-speed, it does not make a lot of sense to estimate clock-speed potential of Bulldozer in general and Interlagos multi-chip-module (MCM) implementation in particular based on the frequency of the engineering sample. Firstly, thermal design power (TDP) of the new central processing units (CPUs) is unlear; in case the chip belongs to Opteron HE versions (85W TDP), then 1.80GHz for a 16-core chip may not be bad, but for the standard version 1.80GHz does not seem to be very good.